This invention relates to building-layout templates which enable one or more persons to establish corners for buildings and layout building wall and footing lines.
Particularly with small buildings, a contractor may often find that surveyors or engineers are not immediately available for laying wall and footing lines for a building. Also, a contractor or others may wish to avoid the expense of a surveyor or engineer by laying his own lines. Generally, however, when a contractor or others attempts to lay his own lines, he runs into several difficulties, the most significant of which is the problem of providing corners of exactly 90.degree. while accurately meeting specifications as to wall length.
In the past, contractors have used protractors comprising crossed arms to lay out a second mason line perpendicular to a first in order to accurately provide a 90.degree. corner. Examples of such protractors are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,401,200 to Smith, 2,685,739 to Cole, and 2,665,482 to Rupp. In addition, in the prior art it is necessary to have devices, generally known as batter boards, at the corners of building sites. Examples of such batter boards are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,562,597 to Breuninger, 2,934,826 to Klaum, 3,318,004 to Payne, and 3,823,480 to Grundman. Batter boards comprise two perpendicular arms which may be fixed to the ground by stakes or the like outside the area in which the footing is to be set, and to which the wall and footing lines may be attached. It is difficult to use protractors with lines attached to batter boards and the batter boards after being set, are often in the way.
It is an object of this invention to provide a building layout template whereby 90.degree. corners may be accurately defined and whereby footings as well as wall lines may be layed using a single instrument for each corner.